Optical fibers can be used to transmit large volumes of data and voice signals over relatively long distances, with little or no signal degradation. For this reason, optical fibers have become widely used in the telecommunication field. As the use of optical fibers has increased, various different systems have been developed for managing and organizing optical fibers.
Typical fiber management systems include a series of racks or frames having fiber management structures for storing the fibers or connecting the fibers to one or more other fibers and/or fiber optic devices, such as attenuators, connectors, switches, multiplexers, splitters/combiners, or splices. Slack storage panels have also been interspersed with the racks/frames to store extra slack in the fibers. The racks or frames typically have either a rear-trough architecture for routing fibers to the fiber management structures of the rack/frame from the back side, or a front-access architecture for routing fibers to the fiber management structures of the rack/frame from the front. Traditionally, rear-trough architecture and front-access architecture racks/frames have not been readily compatible with one another.